[meteorite-list] NWA 869

From: countdeiro at earthlink.net <countdeiro_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:18:13 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <8248362.1277360293799.JavaMail.root_at_wamui-bucket.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Geez! What a great story. You were so lucky to get in on those deals. It makes my hair stand on end to think what it must have been like to rummage through a pile of unsearched meteorites. Better than Gump's box of chocolates!

Count Deiro
IMCA 3536

-----Original Message-----
>From: Phil Whitmer <prairiecactus at rtcol.com>
>Sent: Jun 24, 2010 1:51 AM
>To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>Subject: [meteorite-list] NWA 869
>
>I love NWA 869! It's my absolute favorite, hands down! It's ubiquitous,
>there's so much of it to love. Back in the day, when most of you kids were
>knee high to a grasshopper, I knew a fellow that imported over a metric ton
>of it. Sent it back in 55 gallon drums from Morocco in a ship container.
>This was at the start of the Sahara rush, when you could get it for 1/20 of
>a shekel a gram. 1/10 of a dirham in Moroccan money if you bought it in
>volume. The first thing you did was dump out a barrel into a big pile and
>dive in like a kid into a heap of Autumn leaves. Then you would spread the
>pile out and cherry pick it, there would always be some rare stuff in there.
>Angrites, carbonaceous chondrites, howardites, eucrites, diogenites, you
>name it, the Moroccan dealers were not so discerning back then, they were
>just learning their trade. Then you would go for the unclassified OC's, the
>really fresh looking fully crusted ones. Some real beauts could be found.
>The funny thing about 869 is that the really big ones, the boulders, are
>smoothly crusted, more often black than brown. The very small ones too have
>a smooth black crust. All the rest can be put into a big pile, no one would
>mistake them for anything other than 869. It's mostly the color, but the
>texture too. No other meteorite has that bluish color that sometimes looks
>grey green depending on the light. Sometimes it has a violet tinge, like Liz
>Taylor's eyes. All the midsize rocks had the same distinctive color and
>bumpy, knobby texture. This type was the vast majority of what was and
>probably still is sold as NWA 869. The other stuff was probably just mixed
>in by mistake, probably by a guy with a scoop shovel, scooping meteorites
>off the desert floor and into a cart pulled by donkeys.
>The real fun started when you cut it open. You wouldn't believe all the
>different things you could find in there! If you sliced enough of it up, you
>would see all kinds of unique inclusions, strange crystals you would see
>only once and then never again. Tons of fun to look at it under the
>microscope. Sometimes fragmental brecciated, sometimes highly shocked, you
>never know what you'll see. Lowbrow or not, 869 has been made into more
>jewelry, spheres and assorted knick knacks than any other meteorite I know
>of. Thousands of people wear it next to their skin, some of them never take
>off their meteorite amulet stones set in rings and necklesses. Definitely my
>favorite stone meteorite.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Phil Whitmer
>
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Received on Thu 24 Jun 2010 02:18:13 AM PDT